Bianca Belair's booking is harmful to the division

[mistery]

Okay, I've noticed a trend ever since at least Summerslam last year, where no one who feuds with Bianca gets over. She's booked way too strong in a division that is deep talent/skill wise, but shallow numbers wise. It feels like the only women booked even remotely close to her level are Ronda, Charlotte, and Becky. Hell, you could probably make the argument that her booking is as dominant as Roman's is, except she doesn't cheat to beat the people she faces.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel like while she's a babyface, she's basically WWE's version of Britt Baker in that no one is allowed to actually look better than her. She comes out, calls herself the "EST" of everything, no sells any threats towards her, and damn near 100% of the time ends up right. While never looking in any real danger of losing the title or facing any real adversity. It sucks for any woman that is unfortunate enough to be feuding with her.

I mean you don't even need to go back a month to see how much feuding with her harms people. Look at Damage CTRL as a group. They came in super hot, but their momentum was almost immediately killed the night after Summerslam when they got ran off by Bianca, who almost beat Iyo Sky clean on her (Iyo's) big main roster debut (hot take: it would have been better for Iyo to win that match, even if it was by cheating). And then she cost Damage CTRL the tag titles, killing their momentum even further. Yes she ate the pin at Clash at the Castle, but a casual fan who only watches the weekly shows wouldn't be able to guess that because she almost rolled them on her own last Monday, despite having a grueling match with Sonya.

Obviously I know Bianca is over with fans. However, it's a miracle she hasn't had any sort of real backlash yet since her character hasn't evolved at all since being called up, and she's constantly going over other women with little to no doubt. And now you have two callups in Iyo and Dakota who are behind the eight ball in establishing themselves as stars on the main roster, because creative has painted them as inferior to Bianca, and even Alexa and Asuka for the most part.

[theironyuppie]

Well interestingly, she's already had two (main roster) matches with Charlotte, and won both of them by DQ when she was going to otherwise win the match otherwise. (The first one had Becky break up the pin after the KOD). I think the issue is that the EST is a pretty limited character at the heart of it, especially as a face--she says she's the best at everything and then booking proves her right. She's already beaten virtually everyone on the roster, often multiple times, and it's not really leaving much room for compelling stories anymore. In the Damage CTRL case, there's not really much reason to buy any individual member as a threat when the only way they could get one up on Bianca was by cheating and then hitting three consecutive finishers.

My argument would be that it's not that people don't like her (the KOD is always over, though there's definitely been periods where the crowds have been quiet for Bianca in general, like that feud with Carmella), but that that sort of booking should be proportionate with someone who's way more over than the rest of the roster, whose segments do great numbers on social media and YouTube, and hers unfortunately aren't up to that level.

[The Rick Jericho]

Heel Bianca with Heel Street profits could freshen them up?

[Deleted]

Mentioned it already but she is a talent that has already peaked and there is quite literally nothing left they can do with her that is in any way interesting because she has pretty much beaten everyone , she has already achieved the biggest feats possible.

And really does not help that every woman they have thrown at her (Barring Becky who is pretty much teflon) has not come out better from feuding with her.

She needs to drop the title and go take a Rhea Ripley break from the division and do an outside angle because it is doing wonders for Rhea right now who had a IMO not impressive time within the division previously despite winning the womens title at Mania and getting the rocket outta the gate.

[gl83]

Sept 18, 2022 8:35:10 GMT -5 mistery said:

Okay, I've noticed a trend ever since at least Summerslam last year, where no one who feuds with Bianca gets over. She's booked way too strong in a division that is deep talent/skill wise, but shallow numbers wise. It feels like the only women booked even remotely close to her level are Ronda, Charlotte, and Becky. Hell, you could probably make the argument that her booking is as dominant as Roman's is, except she doesn't cheat to beat the people she faces.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel like while she's a babyface, she's basically WWE's version of Britt Baker in that no one is allowed to actually look better than her. She comes out, calls herself the "EST" of everything, no sells any threats towards her, and damn near 100% of the time ends up right. While never looking in any real danger of losing the title or facing any real adversity. It sucks for any woman that is unfortunate enough to be feuding with her.

I mean you don't even need to go back a month to see how much feuding with her harms people. Look at Damage CTRL as a group. They came in super hot, but their momentum was almost immediately killed the night after Summerslam when they got ran off by Bianca, who almost beat Iyo Sky clean on her (Iyo's) big main roster debut (hot take: it would have been better for Iyo to win that match, even if it was by cheating). And then she cost Damage CTRL the tag titles, killing their momentum even further. Yes she ate the pin at Clash at the Castle, but a casual fan who only watches the weekly shows wouldn't be able to guess that because she almost rolled them on her own last Monday, despite having a grueling match with Sonya.

Obviously I know Bianca is over with fans. However, it's a miracle she hasn't had any sort of real backlash yet since her character hasn't evolved at all since being called up, and she's constantly going over other women with little to no doubt. And now you have two callups in Iyo and Dakota who are behind the eight ball in establishing themselves as stars on the main roster, because creative has painted them as inferior to Bianca, and even Alexa and Asuka for the most part.

Heck, if Rhea didn't injure herself, her feud with Bianca was likely to have been a one-and-done as well(since she was just a stopgap before Bianca faces Becky at Summerslam). So, she would've gotten nothing out of feuding with Bianca as well.

It's quite the contrast to Becky Lynch, who was able to feud with a upstart like Liv Morgan, and by the end of that feud helped elevate her in the process. She constantly had Liv get the better of her leading up to their matches and during their match, Liv was made to look like an equal to Becky. I don't get those vibes with Bianca.

[asuka007]

I think the issue is that the EST character is very limiting. It means Bianca almost never loses (she’s been pinned SIX times total in two and a half years on the MR and was protected in all of them).

She also is booked to physically dominate her foes. Which I get because she IS genuinely a Brock-like freak athlete. But it makes her feuds lack tension because she rarely looks truly vulnerable.

And the few times she does lose, she tends to no sell it afterwards.

[gl83]

Sept 18, 2022 10:28:11 GMT -5 asuka007 said:

I think the issue is that the EST character is very limiting. It means Bianca almost never loses (she’s been pinned SIX times total in two and a half years on the MR and was protected in all of them).

She also is booked to physically dominate her foes. Which I get because she IS genuinely a Brock-like freak athlete. But it makes her feuds lack tension because she rarely looks truly vulnerable.

And the few times she does lose, she tends to no sell it afterwards.

......so basically the worst aspects of Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns & John Cena......

[4real]

It’s the booking of the division as a whole I worry about rather than Bianca. Think she’s been a great champion but can see Bayley taking the title off her soon. Booking Bianca without a title is a challenge though.

[asuka007]

It also feels like she’s never really THE focus in her title feuds. It happened last time as well. It feels like once they put the belt on her, they kind of don’t know what to do after that.

[theironyuppie]

Sept 18, 2022 10:11:15 GMT -5 @sigmax said:

Mentioned it already but she is a talent that has already peaked and there is quite literally nothing left they can do with her that is in any way interesting because she has pretty much beaten everyone , she has already achieved the biggest feats possible.

And really does not help that every woman they have thrown at her (Barring Becky who is pretty much teflon) has not come out better from feuding with her.

She needs to drop the title and go take a Rhea Ripley break from the division and do an outside angle because it is doing wonders for Rhea right now who had a IMO not impressive time within the division previously despite winning the womens title at Mania and getting the rocket outta the gate.

I agree that Rhea's been doing great work in Judgment Day, but the thing with her is that her initial title win wasn't a planned choice. It only happened because of the chaos in the Raw women's division back then: Lacey was pregnant, Asuka got injured, and Charlotte got COVID, and they didn't give the Mania match a story beyond 'Charlotte's not here so I want a match'.  Judging from her recent interviews, it sounds like Vince didn't really get her character, and I think that's unsurprising to hear given they had trouble picking an alignment for her at first, and then ever since losing the title she got very stop-start booking, including losing to Bianca twice within a week as well as two stints in the tag division.

[dbrussel]

Still better than Becky's booking

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

I was going to say that maybe the lack of physically threatening heels had something to do with it but then I remembered her "feud" with Doudrop. I guess maybe Rhea could've been that as she's also someone they are high but she got injured before it could go anywhere so we'll never know.

I don't mind booking your top face strong as they should be strong but the problems with characters like hers is it's hard to get invested in them because there's really nothing for them to overcome as they are always the favorite to win. At least with Damage CTRL you can play up the numbers game and them being able to overwhelm Bianca that way. However if you refuse to book her to be vulnerable in any way it still doesn't matter.

[HMARK Center]

WWE’s main roster women’s divisions really seem to have lacked depth for awhile now. Until they fix that it really seems like those are the belts they should’ve unified for a stretch, not the men’s.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Think it really goes to show how damaging it is to trying to present the women on par with the men having a much thinner roster and no midcard belt, since the only real way to present someone as a top star is to give them every accolade imaginable and have them beat everyone so Bianca's been on the main roster two years and already won the Rumble and won both belts at WrestleMania before having very long reigns where she just bulldozes people every week. There's nowhere to go with her because they want her to be a top star but there's nothing interesting for her to do but steamroll the small handful of potential opponents she has over and over and over and over.

[Deleted]

Bianca has the same issue Raquel had and will probably have in the future as the primary title holder in that WWE is not good at the balancing act here with the more giantess women.

You want them to be protected to some degree to keep credibility to their size but the issue is WWE goes too far (see Bianca now) in that protectiveness by having them pretty effortless just run through the other women leaving them with nothing BUT this would not be so much an issue IF the women they were facing actually came out of the feud better than they went in.

IYO's 300+ day NXT womens title reign is IMO the best blue print to the balancing act in recent times as far as long womens title reigns because every single woman she faced in that time came out better than they went in and that is primarly what kept IYO's reign so easy to ride out for 300+ days because while everyone knew how credible she was , there was never always a sense she was absoloutley going to win....The Dakota and Candice matches were particularly well built that people were practically convinced IYO's reign was ending.

Someone brought up Liv and Becky is another great example of a woman coming out of a feud better than she went in and being elevated despite losing the feud and this is where Bianca's whole reign just falls apart she is having a dominant reign but no one is coming out better from feuding with her.

[asuka007]

Bianca beat Sonya a few months ago when it was basically 3 on 1 (because Carmella and Zelina were helping the former) and after Sonya DDT’d her onto a steel chair. And Bianca still won with ease and quickly.

Oh and this was AFTER Sonya had changed the rules of the match two other times to get an advantage as.

How do you buy Sonya as ANY threat after that?

Doudrop is in theory the big “powerhouse heel.” Yet Bianca has beaten her like 6 times in a row. So no threat there.

It’s hard to make compelling feuds with booking like that. Especially for a babyface.

[Mayonnaise]

I just think she's the female equivalent to Billy Gunn. Not a bad thing, hell I'm a Billy Gun fan going back to the AE, but she shouldn't be the focus of the division. She's a good 2 but not a 1.

[Jindrak Mark]

Extreme Rules will be the 6 month mark of her reign and Bayley should probably win. It feels like it’s time for her to drop it even if I don’t think Bayley has been that interesting since returning.

Her character feels like it has no agency right now. She just reacts to whatever a heel does then comes out on top. The Becky feud was great but Becky did most of the heavy lifting there, character wise. The EST is just a nickname now. She doesn’t have that swagger and cockiness she had a couple of years ago. She’s a bit too smiley generic babyface with no edge. I hate to be the person whose answer to everything is “turn them heel” but heel Bianca on the main roster would be interesting. She still seems to be popular though, especially with little girls, and live crowds still like her so I’m not sure if they would turn her anytime soon.

[mistery]

Sept 18, 2022 20:47:42 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Extreme Rules will be the 6 month mark of her reign and Bayley should probably win. It feels like it’s time for her to drop it even if I don’t think Bayley has been that interesting since returning.

Her character feels like it has no agency right now. She just reacts to whatever a heel does then comes out on top. The Becky feud was great but Becky did most of the heavy lifting there, character wise. The EST is just a nickname now. She doesn’t have that swagger and cockiness she had a couple of years ago. She’s a bit too smiley generic babyface with no edge. I hate to be the person whose answer to everything is “turn them heel” but heel Bianca on the main roster would be interesting. She still seems to be popular though, especially with little girls, and live crowds still like her so I’m not sure if they would turn her anytime soon.

Yeah. I don't think anyone is claiming Bianca isn't over with audiences still. The problem is that she is the only woman who is that over, which is bad. And anyone who feuds with her ends up coming out of it worse, because they never actually get to look strong. And with the lack of midcard titles for the women, the only way you'll make a PPV is if you are challenging for the title. Ronda, Charlotte, Raquel, and Liv are likely going to have the Smackdown scene on lockdown. However on RAW, unless your name is Becky or Bianca, you aren't getting a title run. Your ceiling is being fed to one of those two women, more likely Bianca right now, who will completely undermine you and destroy any shred of credibility you might have.

Hell, I fully expect Bianca to retain in the eventual Bayley/Bianca match probably at Extreme Rules, and the following night Bianca talks about how she's the EST and no one can match up to her and that's the segment.

The sad part is that in the case of Damage CTRL, things are only going to get worse for them over the next few months as Becky is apparently slated back soon, and she'll almost certainly either join Asuka, Alexa, and Bianca, or replace one of Asuka or Alexa.

[theironyuppie]

Sept 18, 2022 10:42:16 GMT -5 asuka007 said:

It also feels like she’s never really THE focus in her title feuds. It happened last time as well. It feels like once they put the belt on her, they kind of don’t know what to do after that.

I think that's where the super-strong booking becomes detrimental to her as well as the division. No one's a threat to her and her EST character is just abstract happy babyface, so you can't book a feud where there's more characterisation or intrigue, and it just becomes 'Bianca wins matches', which isn't enough to stay interesting over time.  Sort of how like how on paper there should be some interesting material coming out of a Bianca/Alexa/Asuka alliance, in terms of their character relationships, but instead it's just very generic.